- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

by Astrid＠xrtc.net

Hi folks, I'm looking to build an X.25 packet data network for semi-active use at the Connections Museum in Seattle. Please contact me off-list (<astrid at xrtc.net>) if you have any X.25-capable networking gear (routers, PADs, cable, etc) that wants a new home. Why? Some of our newer equipment has serial management consoles. Plumbing those into a proper-vintage data network would be a lot spiffier than running around with usb-serial devices. I'm not looking for serial-to-telnet IP converters. I'm also interested in setting up a public federated X.25-over-TCP network, much like https://ckts.info/ but for circuit switched data. Cisco IOS 12 has support for DNS-based routing of XOT connections, which I've been learning how to configure. Thanks, -- ?strid smith (she/her) =<[ c y b e r ]>= antique telephone collectors association member #4870

4 years, 10 months

1
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DEC weights

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Barry M > H960 120 lbs (not sure if this includes the side panels) The H960 has a whole constellation of appurtenances which can add to the weight: sides, back door, back mounting frame, top fan(s), floor screen, stabilizer feet, etc, etc. I happen to have an empty H960 (well, it does have the two top fans, which I was too lazy to take out - they are only a couple of pounds each) out in my garage, so I stuck it on a bathroom floor scale, and it seems to be about 100 pounds. If you want the weight on any of the other bits (above), let me know, it would be easy to weigh them. Noel

4 years, 10 months

2
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DEC weights

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

> On May 23, 2021, at 9:14 PM, Marc Howard via cctech <cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > In my case I'm looking for the weight of an RK05 and full height 19" DEC > rack. I have not see these published, but can attest that it is somewhere between 1 25-yr-old-can-load-in-station-wagon and 1 53-yr-old-can-load-in-station-wagon...

4 years, 10 months

2
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DEC weights

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

Marc, I am not aware of a single document that lists the weights of various sub-systems. I did find the weights or the RK05 and H960 rack: RK05 110 lbs See: DEC-00-RK05-DA RK05 DISK DRIVE MAINTENANCE MANUAL Page 1-2 H960 120 lbs (not sure if this includes the side panels) See: DEC-11H45SM-E-D PDP-11/45 System Maintenance Manual Page C-5 --barrym On Sun, May 23, 2021 at 10:15 PM Marc Howard via cctech < cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Hi, > > Is there a doc anywhere that breaks out the individual weights of various > PDP gear? > > In my case I'm looking for the weight of an RK05 and full height 19" DEC > rack. > > Thanks, > > Marc >

4 years, 10 months

1
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IBM PC Network

by paulkoning＠comcast.net

> On May 23, 2021, at 5:18 PM, Wayne S <wayne.sudol at hotmail.com> wrote: > > ISTR That the 2 main issues hindering wide spread adoption of TR was cost and and not knowing where TR development was headed. > The Type 1 cabling needed to each port on the hub was expensive vs thick/thin Ethernet with taps (as were the hubs). Also, there was no second source for TR chips so everyone who wanted to make TR hardware was at the mercy of the IBM chip pricing so there weren?t too many TR cards being manufactured by anyone other than IBM. I recall the Madge TR cards for IBM ps/2 machines being about $400 ea circa 1992. > So you had a lot of cost standing in the way if you were thinking about going/staying with TR and had hundreds of workstations. There was also the bogus addressing and strange bridging. > As for development, there was an ethernet roadmap ( don?t remember the group that put it together) stating that 100 mbit was next running over shielded twisted pair then unshielded tp. And 1000 mbit was possible. > For TR, No one knew if IBM would up the speed past 16 mb and allow TR chips to be made cheaply. > > Also the fact that token passing is inherently slower than CSMA/CD did not help to sell TR. > The analogy was that if you had a long street with many stop lights, using TR would be like having every light be red and having to stop at each light, where using Ethernet some of the lights would be green and no stop required. > > IBM tried to use that to their advantage and use to say since the amount of time it takes to token pass could be measured precisely that the network response as a whole could be determined and capacity planning was more deterministic using TR than Ethernet. While at DEC in the network architecture group I contributed to a DEC marketing document that was a detailed point by point reply to an IBM document. IBM tried to claim TR was superior, we demolished that in detail. The deterministic argument was in there; unfortunately for IBM it is true that the network is deterministic -- has an upper bound on transmit latency -- but that upper bound is so crazy large that the property has no practical value whatsoever. BTW, this is where FDDI is vastly better, since it uses 802.4 timed token protocol rather than 802.5 token passing. paul

4 years, 10 months

1
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RS64 on a PDP-8?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> Is there a controller to attach an RS64 disk to a PDP-8? The only > controller for the RS64 I can find is the UNIBUS RC11. Thanks. I never saw any reply, so I gather the answer is 'no'. I looked through the stuff on BitSavers for a bunch of other machines (IIRC, PDP-9 and PDP-12 and maybe one more), didn't see anything. The odd thing is that based on the RS64 manual cover/format, it dates to the same time period as the early -11's; and that manual is very careful to separate the drive info from the controller. Very strange that it wasn't interfaced to something else (like an -8 or -9). Maybe there was at one point a plan to do so, but plans changed? I note that there is an RS32 - I onder if they are any relation? Noel

4 years, 10 months

1
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VAXstation 4000/90 Diagnostics

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Is anyone familiar with the 4000/90 diagnostics? It looks like it will fail the test of the LCSPX graphics board, if it?s not plugged into a monitor, or is missing a loopback device. Is that correct? T 2 fails, but the manual makes it sound like I need a loopback T 100 succeeds when testing the LCSPX graphics board. The system had been a boat anchor until a short time ago, as the battery in the Dallas DS1287A RTC was dead. Amazon just delivered two DS12887?s. Once I replaced it, it came right up. I was surprised to see I had a 4GB and a 2GB drive in it. Now to dig out the mouse, and wait for the parts to hook it up to a monitor. :-) Zane

4 years, 10 months

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SCSI2SD

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Does anyone have experience using a SCSI2SD board to replace a Hard Drive on a VAXstation or an AlphaStation? I?m thinking about using them on some of my systems to reduce the amount of noise. I?ve gotten used to a quiet office. :-) Zane

4 years, 10 months

8
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COMPAQ ISA PC to ethernent

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

On 5/23/21 10:35 AM, Warner Losh wrote: > I'm out in Brighton:) Has it been wet there for you too for the last ~36 hours? Are you suggesting splitzies on Rich's collection? Or is that a veiled threat / invitation to share a beverage and chat? ;-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die

4 years, 10 months

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SCSI2SD

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

I've also used a version 5.1 SCSI2SD on a VAXstation 4000/60 without problem.

4 years, 10 months

1
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SCSI2SD

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

> <healyzh at avanthar.com> wrote: In this the weakest link would appear to be the SD Card. As such it seems to me that the best solution would be to have 2 or more SCSI2SD?s in the device. I?m not sure what benefit would be achieved by using a single board to present multiple devices. Unless of course you had a drive size limitation, or you?re trying to emulate something like 2GB or 4GB drives. As an example, that would be handy for VAXen with a 1GB Boot Drive limitation. -Zane Zane, I am using SCSI2SD cards in a VAXstation 4000/90a, and in a MV3100-80 as well as an Alpha DS10. In the two VAXes, I use two SCSI2SD cards, configured identically with a system drive and a user drive on class 10 16GB microSD cards. So each microSD card has both the system drive and the user drive. Thus I can use VMS backup from one microSD card to another so that if one microSD card fails I can easily recover from it. So far I have not had hardware failures, but being able to recover from a bad software installation which has been VERY helpful. Mark

4 years, 10 months

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VT100 dot stretching in reverse video

by lars＠nocrew.org

Hello, Is there anyone with a VT100 (or any VT1xx, if so please specify which) that can make a photo displaying text in reverse video? I'm making a detailed simulation of the VT100 hardware, and I'd like to see what, if any, effect dot streching has. I searched the "VT100 Technical Manual", but as far as I can see it doesn't say. A good sample text would be: ESC [ 7 m b d h x CR LF ESC [ 0 m b d h x CR LF

4 years, 10 months

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5
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PDP-8/e M8652 KL8F Double-buffered asynch terminal control

by ccth6600＠gmail.com

I am looking for the manual for the following Omnibus board: M8652 KL8F Double-buffered asynch terminal control Is there a scanned copy of the manual and/or schematic or any other information for this board somewhere? Thanks and best regards Tom Hunter

4 years, 10 months

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DEC DUP

by aek＠bitsavers.org

posting this over here, if anyone has any clues for this guy i could dig in the DEC archive but it won't be any fun to find https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/genres/dec/1209678-documentation-for-dec-…

4 years, 10 months

2
1
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RT-11 .DPA and .DPY files

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've just finished processing a bunch of RX01 and RX02 RT11A disks. The files on the RX01 floppies are of type .DPA and those on the RX02 ones, DPY. No files of any other type in the whole collection. I have no other information, but I suspect that these are plotter files. Both types seem to start with the same prefix bytes, for example: 06 00 f0 00 40 00 00 01 00 1e ff ff 00 00 00 00 Does anyone have a guide to how these files are structured? Thanks, Chuck

4 years, 10 months

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Melted computer feet

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Is there any recommended method for cleaning up melted ?rubber? feet on a plastic case? I?m trying to determine if I can revive the VAXstation 4000/90 I received from a list member, back around 1998 (it?s never worked). When I pulled it out, I discovered that its feet have melted, and I?m assuming probably made a mess on the disk enclosure for my VAXstation 3100 that it was on top of. Zane

4 years, 10 months

8
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Sun 3/80 parts

by knowak＠alumni.calpoly.edu

Hi All, I lent my Sun 3/80 out to someone and it came back pretty damaged. Does anyone by chance have an old 3/80 carcass laying around that has a good rear plastic bezel P/N 600-2209-02? If not, does anyone have any plastic repair suggestions? Also one of the rear feet (narrower rear one) opposite the PSU was missing... -Kurt

4 years, 10 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 80, Issue 17

by bobsmithofd＠gmail.com

THanks Lee!! Much appreciated - confirmed my decaying memory, and pointed out the the almost mythical DECNA!! bb On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 1:38 PM <cctalk-request at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > Send cctalk mailing list submissions to > cctalk at classiccmp.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > cctalk-request at classiccmp.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > cctalk-owner at classiccmp.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of cctalk digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. DECNet for Pro 300 series boxes (Lee Gleason) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 18 May 2021 12:20:34 -0500 > From: Lee Gleason <lee.gleason at comcast.net> > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: DECNet for Pro 300 series boxes > Message-ID: <db66b12f-e0a4-94b4-d9e9-efa88a84851e at comcast.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > > ? DECnet for Pro350/380 was donated to DECUS, available as? DECUS > package PRO175. A quick Goog found the floppy disk images for it at > http://www.os2site.com/sw/DEC/pro/pro175/index.html. If that site > doesn't work out, or you don't like them in LHARC format, let me know - > I have them as normal dsk files. DECnet on the PRO's was end node only, > you could run it DDCMP on an asynch line, or on the rare, elusive, DECNA > ethernet card - but not both at once. > > -- > Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR > Control-G Consultants > lee.gleason at comcast.net > > > End of cctalk Digest, Vol 80, Issue 17 > **************************************

4 years, 10 months

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DECNet for Pro 300 series boxes

by lee.gleason＠comcast.net

? DECnet for Pro350/380 was donated to DECUS, available as? DECUS package PRO175. A quick Goog found the floppy disk images for it at http://www.os2site.com/sw/DEC/pro/pro175/index.html. If that site doesn't work out, or you don't like them in LHARC format, let me know - I have them as normal dsk files. DECnet on the PRO's was end node only, you could run it DDCMP on an asynch line, or on the rare, elusive, DECNA ethernet card - but not both at once. -- Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR Control-G Consultants lee.gleason at comcast.net

4 years, 10 months

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Looking for VAXSET Software Engineering Tools for VMS 4.x

by mdehling＠gmail.com

(I had accidentally sent my reply below only to Antonio. I'm resending it to the list.) > On 10/05/2021 10:05, Malte Dehling wrote: > > Thanks a lot, Antonio, these are very valuable to have! > I've only checked a couple of them under SIMH, so it would be helpful to > know if I need to check my workflow or not. > > I think uploading them to archive.org would be a good long-term > > solution. I can take care of it if you don't have an account. > > Please do. Thanks. Will do. I'll let you know. > In other news, I polished the MAR-1989 CONOLD, which looked very bad, to > start with. Amazingly it buffed up quite nicely and then read surprisingly > well: > > [ > > $ ddrescue -r5 -v /dev/sr1 CDROM-AG-NC67A-RE-1989-03-VMS-CONOLD.iso > CDROM-AG-NC67A-RE-1989-03-VMS-CONOLD.map > GNU ddrescue 1.23 > About to copy 205199 kBytes from '/dev/sr1' to > 'CDROM-AG-NC67A-RE-1989-03-VMS-CONOLD.iso' > ??? Starting positions: infile = 0 B,? outfile = 0 B > ??? Copy block size: 128 sectors?????? Initial skip size: 128 sectors > Sector size: 512 Bytes > > Press Ctrl-C to interrupt > ???? ipos:? 205198 kB, non-trimmed:??????? 0 B,? current rate:?????? 0 B/s > ???? opos:? 205198 kB, non-scraped:??????? 0 B,? average rate: 637 kB/s > non-tried:??????? 0 B,? bad-sector:???? 2048 B,??? error rate: 170 B/s > ? rescued:? 205197 kB,?? bad areas:??????? 1,??????? run time:????? 5m 22s > pct rescued:?? 99.99%, read errors:?????? 25,? remaining time:???????? n/a > ????????????????????????????? time since last successful read:????? 2m? 1s > Finished > ] > > > So I went ahead and tried the CONDIST from MAY-1989. That too now can be > read, although it is proving a somewhat tougher nut to crack: > > [ > > $ ddrescue -r5 -v /dev/sr1 CDROM-AG-MN36D-RE-1989-05-VMS-CONDIST.iso > CDROM-AG-MN36D-RE-1989-05-VMS-CONDIST.map > GNU ddrescue 1.23 > About to copy 623247 kBytes from '/dev/sr1' to > 'CDROM-AG-MN36D-RE-1989-05-VMS-CONDIST.iso' > ??? Starting positions: infile = 0 B,? outfile = 0 B > ??? Copy block size: 128 sectors?????? Initial skip size: 128 sectors > Sector size: 512 Bytes > > Press Ctrl-C to interrupt > ???? ipos:??? 5919 kB, non-trimmed:??????? 0 B,? current rate:?????? 0 B/s > ???? opos:??? 5919 kB, non-scraped:?? 11127 kB,? average rate: 14694 B/s > non-tried:??????? 0 B,? bad-sector:??? 2843 kB,??? error rate:????? 85 B/s > ? rescued:? 609276 kB,?? bad areas:????? 445,??????? run time: 11h 31m? 2s > pct rescued:?? 97.75%, read errors:???? 5884,? remaining time:? 5d 23h 43m > ????????????????????????????? time since last successful read:????? 2m 45s > Scraping failed blocks... (forwards)??? ] > > > On the plus side, that's 97.75% more data than I had before :-) but the > "remaining time" looks like it could be the rest of the week (it varies > quite a bit). > > > I think, from reading the manual, that I can use CTRL-C and restart this > again later and it will pick up where it left off using the map file. Is > this right? Very nice, this worked much better than I had expected! And you're right, you can simply CTRL-C and restart ddrescue with the same command (i.e., with the iso and map file; different options should work.) I would make a copy of the files before restarting, just in case. > Are there any other options I should consider trying? Can you try with "-b 2048 -d" for direct disc access and maybe once more with "-R" for reverse? > Another thought is that perhaps a shade more polishing might help. If I > polish the CDROM a little more and then resume the ddrescue, I think I won't > be any worse off than I am now, i.e. all existing data will still be there > and all I'll be risking is data that maybe would have eventually read before > but now may not read at all. Is that right? Successful reads are now ~20m > apart, so I suspect that the remaining data will be quite difficult to > recover. After trying the various options on the disk in its current state, I see no harm in trying this approach. With the map file, ddrescue should never overwrite already-read data. Again, I would make a copy to be safe. Cheers, Malte -- Malte Dehling <mdehling at gmail.com>

4 years, 10 months

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Still looking for VAXSET <= v7.0

by mdehling＠gmail.com

Dear list, through Antonio's efforts, we have now archived ISOs for a number of early CONDIST CDs. Unfortunately, this did not help me find a version of the VAXSET Software Engineering Tools for VMS 4.x that I was looking for: - CONDIST 1989-07 contains VAXSET v8.0, which requires VMS 5.0/5.1. - CONDIST 1989-05 does not contain any VAXSET components. So my hope now is that someone may still have old TK50 or 9-Track distribution tapes stored away for VAXSET v7.0 or earlier, or for some of its components: - LSE Language Sensitive Editor v2.2 or earlier - SCA Source Code Analyzer v1.2 or earlier - PCA Performance Coverage Analyzer v2.0 or earlier - DTM DEC/Test Manager v2.3 or earlier (I already have CMS and MMS.) Cheers, Malte -- Malte Dehling <mdehling at gmail.com>

4 years, 10 months

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DECNet for Pro 300 series boxes

by bobsmithofd＠gmail.com

My recollection of Decnet for Pro boxes is that the available SW was for an end node and not a routing or other capability for the 380/350/325 boxes. While that memory might be incorrect, are there any DecNet packages for the Pro family available anywhere? a few hours of searching did not turn up any thing but PDFs about the software. thanks in advance for any replies. bob

4 years, 10 months

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Fwd: DDS Intertec SuperBrain attic find w/ OS and dust cover

by 4eric.evans＠gmail.com

Classic Computer Collectors, My name is Eric and I live in Baton Rouge, LA. A customer of mine recently asked me to find a good home for his early 1980's Intertec Superbrain. He told me that it worked the last time he used it in 198? after which time it sat in his attic with the dust cover on it. He provided me with a number of 5.25" floppy disks, which he said contained the complete operating system. The chassis appears to be 100% intact, and includes the dust cover. I can provide a few photos if you'd like. I have not yet been able to make contact with any other classic PC collectors, or museums that have expressed interest. Before I send it out to my local recycler, I thought I'd reach out and see if anyone might be interested. Thank you for your time & God bless, Eric Evans 225homebuyers.com 225.242.9858 gVoice 316.461.8587 cell ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Dave Dunfield <dds.dunfield at gmail.com> Date: Tue, May 11, 2021 at 11:09 PM Subject: Re: DDS Intertec SuperBrain attic find w/ OS and dust cover To: Eric Evans <4eric.evans at gmail.com> Hi Eric, Sorry but no - I'm moving to smaller digs and have had to let much of my collection go and simply can't take on more right now. You might try the Classic computer collectors mailing list: http://www.classiccmp.org Dave Btw: In asking stuff like this it might be a good idea to state your (or friends) location. On Mon, May 10, 2021 at 5:22 PM Eric Evans <4eric.evans at gmail.com> wrote: > Dave, > > A customer of mine recently asked me to find a good home for his early > 1980's Intertec Superbrain. He told me that it worked the last time he used > it in 198? after which time it sat in his attic with the dust cover on it. > He provided me with a number of 5.25" floppy disks, which he said contained > the complete operating system. > > The chassis appears to be 100% intact, and includes the dust cover. I can > provide a few photos if you'd like. > > I have not yet been able to make contact with any other classic PC > collectors, or museums that have expressed interest. Before I send it out > to my local recycler, I thought I'd reach out and see if you had any > interest, or knew of anyone who might. > > Thank you for your time & God bless, > > Eric Evans > 225homebuyers.com > 225.242.9858 gVoice > 316.461.8587 cell > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Search "Dave's Old Computers" see "my personal" at bottom!

4 years, 10 months

4
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Documentation for F11 Chipset?

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have gone back to trying to fix my DEC Professional 350. I have a printset for the machine now. I think the CPU is being constantly reset. Is there any documentation anywhere on the F11 chipset? Bitsavers only seems to have the later J11. Thanks Rob

4 years, 10 months

5
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DEC PDP-8/e Omnibus backplane lubrication

by ccth6600＠gmail.com

What is the best type of lubricant for Omnibus backplanes? It can be a struggle to insert and remove PDP-8/e boards into the Omnibus. There is a risk of damage to the brittle bakelite connector housings on the Omnibus PCB. Traditional contact sprays should work but have two problems: 1) they remain wet and over time will attract and retain dust 2) the solvent and lubricant *may* weaken or attack the bakelite There are some PTFE (Teflon) based lubricant sprays which create a dry film. Would this type of spray work? Any suggestions on what I could use that reduces the strain on the Omnibus and the PCBs during insertion/removal without creating new problems? Thanks and best regards Tom Hunter

4 years, 10 months

9
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Looking for VAXSET Software Engineering Tools for VMS 4.x

by mdehling＠gmail.com

Dear all, I am looking for a version of the VAXSET Software Engineering Tools to run on (Micro)VMS 4.7. The oldest version I have found so far is VAXSET010 which requires VMS 5.3 to run (this was on CSD 1991/05.) VAXSET is a bundle of the following components (and more in newer versions): - CMS (Code Management System) - LSE (Language Sensitive Editor) - SCA (Source Code Analyzer) - MMS (Module Management System) - PCA (Performance Coverage Analyzer) - DTM (DEC/Test Manager) I have found versions of CMS and MMS seperately that run on VMS 4.x. If anyone has old versions of the other components and is willing to share, that would be much appreciated :-) Cheers, Malte -- Malte Dehling <mdehling at gmail.com>

4 years, 11 months

13
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920M - an European contemprary of the Apollo Guidance Computer

by erik＠baigar.de

Dear colleagues in vintage computing ;-) In the last years there has been substantial interest in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC). So maybe someone might be interested what happened outside of the United States in the 1960ties: Over the last few years I restored a 920M computer which was (among others) used as the guidance computer in the Europa rocket. This was the ancestor of the European Ariane sapce launcher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Launcher_Development_Organisation Although not well known, this machine is a contemporary of the AGC, it also uses integrated, SMD mounted circuits and is realized in DTL techology (Diode Transistor Technology). Its word width is 18bit, 8k of core store where standard within a show-box sized chassis. 2us and later down to 1us instruction time where stadnard. In contrast to the AGC, this machine was a member of a whole series of airborne computers - some of which are still in use TODAY (2021). After core and the DTL chips became obsolete, this architecture even was re-implemented by BAE systems using the AMD29XX chipset in the same chassis as drop-in replacement. The 920M never had core rope memory, and for rocket guidance 8k have been enough although adding a 2nd box extending the core was possible. Tte architecture is able to support up to 256k words of 18 bit. Of course, the instruction set is very archaic - no carry flag, no stack but it served its purpose with 18 bit choosen as the perfect word length to give reasonable resolution without need for double-word calculation in most applications; http://www.programmer-electronic-control.de/Elliott920FactsCard.pdf If this triggered some interest, you may watch my recently released video on the 920M (covers applications, internals and some software is shown running)... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-gF5g0nnoE ...or visit my project page regarding the work of restoring three different members of this computer family to working condition: http://www.programmer-electronic-control.de/index.html Happy computing to all of you, best wishes, Erik. P.S. Just wanted to point out, that also in Europe there have been relevant developments regarding spaceborne computing in parallel to the Apollo programme! In no ways I want to diminish the achievemets of the Apollo development team... ''~`` ( o o ) +------------------------.oooO--(_)--Oooo.--------------------------+ | Dr. Erik Baigar Inertial Navigation & | | erik at baigar.de .oooO Vintage Computer | | www.baigar.de ( ) Oooo. Hobbyist | +---------------------------\ (----( )----------------------------+ \_) ) / (_/ Dr. Erik Baigar Scientific Lead Spectroscopy Systems Technologie Team Spectroscopy THORLABS GmbH M?nchner Weg 1 85232 Bergkirchen Germany Tel.: +49 (0) 8131 5956-40147 Fax.: ?+49 (0) 8131 5956-99 Mail: ?EBaigar at thorlabs.com Web: ?www.thorlabs.com General Manager: Dr. Bruno Gross HRB No: 85345, M?nchen

4 years, 11 months

5
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MOPPY.....

by organlists1＠sonic.net

Which is closer to being vintage, the sounds made, or the floppy disk drives themselves? Moppy + Star Wars Theme = Floppy Vader's Theme https://youtu.be/LdgzsF_O7oI Donald R. Resor Jr. T. W. & T. C. Svc. Co. http://hammondorganservice.com Hammond USA warranty service "Most people don't have a sense of humor. They think they do, but they don't." --Jonathan Winters

4 years, 11 months

3
6
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LK201 emulator for PS-2 keyboard

by paulkoning＠comcast.net

Last year I created an LK201 keyboard emulator that uses a USB keyboard. More recently I extended that work to create a second one that uses a PS-2 keyboard instead. Partly because I had one and figured it would be fun to try. You can find both designs on Github at https://github.com/pkoning2/lk201emu . The "doc" directory describes both; in particular, file doc/kicad.md talks about the hardware design, with pointers to an OSHPark layout, a parts BOM, and assembly instructions. The new one is slightly larger than the old (2 by 2 inches, rather than 2 by 1.5). I like the audio implementation a bit better; perhaps I'll revise the USB version to use that same technique. Enjoy. Comments and feedback will be much appreciated, either by email or on this list or as "issues" on Github. paul

4 years, 11 months

6
9
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Has anyone heard from Paxton Hoag ?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Josh and I have been trying to contact him for a couple of years now. Has anyone been in contact with him?

4 years, 11 months

2
2
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PDP-11 SPACEWAR running again!

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Today I finally got the SPACEWAR version for PDP-11/10 running again on my PDP-11/05 with AR11 board. I played a couple of rounds together with my daughter. She was better than me. Quite hard game IMHO. https://youtu.be/fTiHRAKjyho Bill Seiler and Larry Bryant wrote this version in 1974 and submitted it to DECUS. It was believed to have been lost to history. But Bill had saved the printouts from the PAL11 assembler. He sent me scans of these printouts as pdf files. I then transcribed it into source files and iterated several times in SimH to get a clean build and link. I got some help from people here doing OCR on some files. But the lines mostly confused the OCR process so a lot of errors was introduced. It turned out that it was easier to just transcribe the whole lot by hand than finding and correcting errors. The AR11 is somewhat different to the AD01 and AA11 that Bill and Larry used. AA11 has a 12 bit 2?s complement D/A while the AR11 is only 10 bits and not 2?s complement. I did some patches and eventually got everything right. I also connected a couple of analogue joysticks. The fire button is just short ciruiting the viper of the potentiometer to the 5V supply lead. The screen is a HP1332A vector screen. All the transcribed code, AR11 patches and build instructions are available on github. https://github.com/MattisLind/SPACEWAR It should be possible to adapt it to orher types of A/D and D/A hardware if anyone wishes to do so. However the gameplay might be harder when running on a faster PDP-11? Have fun! /Mattis

4 years, 11 months

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Apple II PSU

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

Anyone have any idea on how to open this particular Apple II PSU? It is a Astec AA 11040B and has like a rivet on each side in the middle. All the other supplies I've messed with just had screws along the bottom. Trying to remove the bottom of the casing so I can work on the supply itself. Link to a pic of it. Thanks for any help. http://www.trailingedge.com/images/A2PSU.jpg David Williams www.trailingedge.com

4 years, 11 months

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DMC integral modem line card schematics

by paulkoning＠comcast.net

Does anyone have a DMC11 integral modem line card schematics set? I'm looking specifically for the part right next to the connector, i.e., the coax driver and coax receiver parts. I don't see it on Bitsavers. That does have a line unit maintenance manual which has a schematic of the digital parts (in other words, everything up to the point I actually need the most) but it omits the analog part, saying to find it on "print D16". The DMR11 print set does show a circuit for this, but it's very different from what the DMC manual describes and it has some aspects that don't make much sense, like a "sine generator" in the output stage. paul

4 years, 11 months

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Restorations...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

Jim, I sent you an email to your jwsmail at jwsss.com mail account and haven't heard back from you, so thought I'd better try to reach you on cctalk! It's about potential restoration work needed in the LA area. Please get back to me privately. Sorry for the interruption of posting this to the cctalk list... Best, Lyle -- 73 NM6Y Bickley Consulting West https://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

4 years, 11 months

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WordPerfect for VMS

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Strange question, does anyone happen to have the keyboard overlays for the VAX/VMS version of Word Perfect that they can photograph, or better yet scan? I have the manuals, and the green, red, and blue stickers on the VT keyboard, but no overlays. I *might* have the overlays, but I can?t find the the VT keyboard I?m thinking of (though after digging, I know I have more than I thought). I?m looking for the VT200/300 version (which should work for my LK401). Zane

4 years, 11 months

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cctech Digest, Vol 80, Issue 10

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

Date: Mon, 10 May 2021 10:15:34 -0700 > From: Vincent Slyngstad <vincent.slyngstad at gmail.com> > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: QBUS/UNIBUS card handles > Message-ID: <826ef016-3060-e690-de81-8209479712e9 at gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > On 5/10/2021 9:25 AM, Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: >> >>> On May 10, 2021, at 7:14 AM, Joshua Rice via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >>> I would assume it would be trivial to do an injection-moulded run of these handles... >> >> They might also be ideal for silicone mold / resin cast, for smaller/home production runs? > > Resin casting will work, but it's messy, etc. I haven't had any trouble > with the toughness of 3D printed handles. Honestly, I often attach them > with a pair of small zip-ties instead of rivets, and they are still > plenty strong. The usual caveats about 3D printing apply -- just don't > print it so that the layers will be torn apart when you pull on it! > > Maybe you PDP-11 guys are more used to hex cards, or something? I did > have some PCB made where the card fingers tended to bind, but that's > best addressed with some careful filing and a tweak of the CAD files for > the next run :-). (The CAD files on so-much-stuff have long been > tweaked for a good fit to the connector blocks.) > > Vince Vince, I recently had Shapeways 3D print some of your card handles in Nylon 12. They call Nylon 12 ?versatile plastic? on their web site and they use a laser sintering process for fabrication. I used the card handles on my QBone and UniBone boards which makes them MUCH easier to insert and pull. The Nylon 12 seems to be quite tough and I used 3mm x 6mm long screws to fasten them. Shapeways charged $5.00 each plus shipping to make them. Thanks for the great 3D design! Best Regards, Mark

4 years, 11 months

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PDP-11 SPACEWAR running again!

by sieler＠allegro.com

Re: Today I finally got the SPACEWAR version for PDP-11/10 running again on my PDP-11/05 with AR11 board. ... Bill Seiler and Larry Bryant wrote this version in 1974 Congratulations! Odd coincidence, sort of, in names ... "Seiler" wrote SPACEWAR in 1974 for the PDP-11, "Sieler" (me) wrote it for the Digital Scientific Meta 4 (an IBM 1130 super clone) in 1971. I suspect he gets his name mispronounced as much as I do :) Stan Sieler (long "e")

4 years, 11 months

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In search of RK05 rack caddy

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

Okay, now that my 11/45 is up and running well, I could really make good use of one of those rack caddies for RK05 packs to hold my most commonly used system packs for different operating systems. Anybody have one they'd be willing to sell/trade, or at least the DEC part number so I could try to track down some drawings? Looking at pictures on the web, there seem to have been at least two styles: one with plated rod wings, and one with sheet metal wings? I'm supposing I'll end up needing to fab something myself unless these are less rare out there than I think they are (I've yet to see one go by on ePay, for example.) cheers, --FritzM.

4 years, 11 months

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Pipelining and Dec Jupiter thoughts....

by compoobah＠gmail.com

On Sat, 2021-05-08 at 12:00 -0500, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > I seem to recall that the Tadpole AlphaBook performance is roughly on > par with the DEC Multia, which is to say, not very good.? Though I > don?t think I ever got OpenVMS running on my Multia. > > Zane I did get it running on mine for a while. I remember it wasn't fast and was kind of annoying - the VMS-capable SRM had a peculiar bug where if the NVRAM battery died you had to failsafe-load the official Multia firmware then load the VMS-capable one otherwise the framebuffer would never initialize, not even after the battery was replaced. Finally got a DEC 3000 and passed the Multia off. Wish that some of the DEC gear that was showing up was nearby... ah well.

4 years, 11 months

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PDP-11 SPACEWAR running again!

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Thanks Mattis - watching an AR11 making that oscilloscope display brings back a lot of memories from my PDP-11 programming days. Had heard of spacewar in 1980, but was more interested in playing around displaying data on screen of a scope. One of my jobs was to clean up electrophysiology data for publication and that meant removing noise in signal so had a joystick system which could move and click on point on screen I wanted deleted. 11/34 was fast enough that we had an EE summer student create a dot matrix character set so we could put captions on our oscilloscope images. Of course, only way of getting hard copies of those was with an oscilloscope Polaroid camera. Looking at the printouts that you're dealing with, I had a hard time making out some of the characters. Can see individual dots in a number of the characters and haven't found any OCR in past that works well on them. Had my MSc thesis printed on and IBM lineprinter and looks good >from afar but couldn't get any OCR program to digitize it properly. At least the spacewar code is relatively short! Boris Gimbarzevsky >Today I finally got the SPACEWAR version for PDP-11/10 running again on my >PDP-11/05 with AR11 board. I played a couple of rounds together with my >daughter. She was better than me. Quite hard game IMHO. > >https://youtu.be/fTiHRAKjyho > >Bill Seiler and Larry Bryant wrote this version in 1974 and submitted it to >DECUS. It was believed to have been lost to history. But Bill had saved the >printouts from the PAL11 assembler. He sent me scans of these printouts as >pdf files. I then transcribed it into source files and iterated several >times in SimH to get a clean build and link. I got some help from people >here doing OCR on some files. But the lines mostly confused the OCR process >so a lot of errors was introduced. It turned out that it was easier to just >transcribe the whole lot by hand than finding and correcting errors. > >The AR11 is somewhat different to the AD01 and AA11 that Bill and Larry >used. AA11 has a 12 bit 2???s complement D/A while the AR11 is only 10 bits >and not 2???s complement. I did some patches and eventually got everything >right. > >I also connected a couple of analogue joysticks. The fire button is just >short ciruiting the viper of the potentiometer to the 5V supply lead. The >screen is a HP1332A vector screen. > >All the transcribed code, AR11 patches and build instructions are available >on github. https://github.com/MattisLind/SPACEWAR > >It should be possible to adapt it to orher types of A/D and D/A hardware if >anyone wishes to do so. However the gameplay might be harder when running >on a faster PDP-11? > >Have fun! > >/Mattis

4 years, 11 months

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Intel iPSC/860 restoration

by camiel.vanderhoeven＠vmssoftware.com

I managed to bring another one of my supercomputers back to life: an Intel iPSC/860. This one has 16 compute nodes, 8 i860?s and8 i386?s with Weitek co-processors, as well as 4 I/O nodes. Detailed writeup here: http://www.vaxbarn.com/index.php/42-repair/756-ipsc-860-repair Downloads (documentation, tape and floppy images available in the downloads section on my website. Camiel This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain privileged, confidential, proprietary, private, copyrighted, or other legally protected information. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual or entity designated above. If you are not the intended recipient (even if the e-mail address above is yours), please notify us by return e-mail immediately, and delete the message and any attachments. Any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this message or any attachments by an individual or entity other than the intended recipient is prohibited.

4 years, 11 months

5
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Terminals wiki

by dfnr2＠yahoo.com

Does anyone have a mirror of the terminals wiki at https://terminals-wiki.org?? It seems to have gone dark over a year ago, and it would be a shame to lose the resource.? If there is no mirror, does anyone know of a way to contact the owner/maintainer?? I'd like to see if there's anything I can do to help get it back online. Thanks, Dave

4 years, 11 months

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Apple II+ Video questions

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

Working on restoring my very first computer, an Apple II+. Got it mostly working with just a couple of issues identified at the moment. Some of the keys on the keyboard don't register but I can work on that. The real question I have is about the video, it constantly rolls and no amount of playing with the vertical hold on any monitor I try will completely stop it. I can get it close but it will slowly roll one way or the other at best. Tried several different monitors and it is the same on each. Also tried my old Apple IIe and it seems fine on all the monitors so trying to decide what might be the issue with the II+. Any ideas or areas to look? Thanks. David Williams www.trailingedge.com

4 years, 11 months

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QBUS/UNIBUS card handles

by drb＠msu.edu

Folks, Does anyone have a design for printing card handles for QBUS / UNIBUS cards? It seems a natural application. Some grepping of the list logs, a brief plonk through the gadawful thingiverse search, and various googling have produced no existing designs. Thanks, De

4 years, 11 months

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Maxtor ESDI drive PCB question

by knowak＠alumni.calpoly.edu

Hi All, I have two Maxtor XT-4380E drives, one is a Series Code 3 and the other is 4. Is it OK to swap the boards between the two or is this a bad idea? They physically appear to look the same. Also a general question about PCB cleanup. Is there a method or solvent of some sort to clean boards? I've always used 99% alcohol in the past. -Kurt

4 years, 11 months

2
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Pipelining and Dec Jupiter thoughts....

by dick.curtis＠ymail.com

> From: Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> > Message-ID: <9D8BADA7-B597-42E1-99C8-4CC751F838C5 at comcast.net> > Another part of the puzzle was figuring out how to feed 100 watts of power to a chip,?> and get rid of that amount of heat, neither of which were anywhere close to what was > done at the time.? I still have some of the tech reports that describe that piece (and I?>contributed a wild idea -- which unfortunately DEC didn't get around to patenting?>before the project was shut down). Back in the mid-90s, there was an outfit in Britain which made some laptops using Alpha processors.? There was a rumor inside DECin the same time-frame about DEC engineers prototyping an Alpha-based laptop (which never made it to market). The rumor included the internal code-name... "BURNS". Dick

4 years, 11 months

4
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Pipelining and Dec Jupiter thoughts....

by dick.curtis＠ymail.com

On Friday, May 7, 2021, 11:07 CDT,?Zane Healy <healyzh at avanthar.com> wrote: > These if I needed OpenVMS on a laptop, I'd simply run it via emulator or virtualization?> (not an option for Itanium).? I gather that at least some development on OpenVMS 9.2 > is being done on VM's running on the developers laptops. Well, the latest version shipping from Bolton is V9.0-H, which has the long-awaited support for VMware, and IIRC some non-zero number of compilers available.? It's still pretty well set in the "bleeding-edge" field of software though.? It's labelled as V90EAK, with the last three letters indicating "Early Adopters' Kit", and made available to a rather small number of VMS customers who are interested in making their own products run on X64-86 platforms (as well as work properly on Itanics running v9.x) I don't know whether VSI has any particular policy about making the field test kits available to hobbyists/end-users quite yet.? Bear in mind that there's a LOT of VMS components which aren't really ready to use yet.? If memory serves, the V9.1 kit will also be labelled as 'field test', but will be made available to a larger number of customers/test sites, and is expected to include working versions of the components currently 'in progress'. Regards,Dick

4 years, 11 months

1
0
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400 Hz

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

On 5/8/21 12:00 PM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 8 Date: Fri, 7 May 2021 21:59:08 +0000 From: W2HX > <w2hx at w2hx.com> To: Andrew Back <andrew at carrierdetect.com>, "General > Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: 400 Hz Message-ID: > <de37431b96cf4c82ba5ddb2b9daf1873 at EXBE015SV3.NA02.MSEXCHANGEOUTLOOK.COM> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I will add that aircraft are > one of the main users of 400 Hz. This is because weight is always an > critical design consideration. So with smaller transformers, smaller > capacitors, etc, you can save a LOT of weight on electronic devices in > an aircraft. 73 Eugene W2HX -----Original Message----- From: cctalk > <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Andrew Back via cctalk > Sent: Wednesday, May 5, 2021 11:26 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: 400 Hz On 05/05/2021 16:07, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: >> Were the higher frequencies used because it directly effected the >> amount of time / duration in (fractions of) seconds between peaks of >> rectified (but not yet smoothed) power? > Haven't read the rest of the thread and so at the risk of being profoundly wrong... Benefit of 400Hz mains is that transformers can be much smaller. Think of switching power supplies that rectify to DC and then switch up into kHz, which are then able to use far smaller transformer cores than an old linear PSU. At least this is a key motivation with 115V/400Hz 3-phase aviation power AFAIK. > > By coincidence we've just built a big 28VDC power supply, so that we can run a vintage 400Hz aircraft rotary inverter, which will then be used to power up old mil surplus kit that wants this. A classic adventure in yak shaving. Anyway, here's the 28VDC bit. > > https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/constructing-a-high-current-28v-dc-po… That's a very neat repackaging of the Lambda power supplies! Do they have the surge capability to start that rotary inverter (which may require a LOT more than 44 amps until the armature gets moving)... I hope you tested them first ;) I bought a 1 KVA 115V 400 Hz supply, a PP-7482/G from Fair Radio back when they still had them ("Reparable") a few years ago. The H-bridge TO-3 transistors were all blown, some with holes melted through their lids. I replaced them with BUX48A parts and it works again. It really sings that A-flat though ;) But I don't have anything to run with it! When I was young, 400 Hz surplus gear was a dime a dozen because no one had 400 Hz power. Now I do and all that gear has disappeared... -Charles WB3JOK/0 since '76 :)

4 years, 11 months

1
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400 Hz

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

I have found the Motor Generator thread to be fascinating and enlightening. But it has made many a reference to the 400 Hz or other frequency much higher than mains line frequency. Despite the comments about the frequency, I'm still confused as to why the higher than mains frequency was used. Were the higher frequencies used because it directly effected the amount of time / duration in (fractions of) seconds between peaks of rectified (but not yet smoothed) power? I ask because it seems to me like the percentage of time / duty cycle of raw rectified but not yet smoothed) power would be the same at any and all frequencies. Is this assumption / understanding correct or completely off the mark? A few different people made references to the amount of capacitance needed at 400 Hz et al. vs 50/60 Hz mains frequency. Someone even spoke about high power DC being produced by polyphase converters and the possibility to tweak tweak winding voltages in order to possibly do away with the need for capacitors. Am I starting to understand the motivation behind the 400 Hz or is there something else behind it? Is this really playing to the (dis)charge time of capacitors in between peaks of rectified (but not smoothed) sources? Aside: I started a new thread for this very specific minutia to not mire the other Motor Generator thread down. Thank you for all the comments and those who respond to help me learn something new today. :-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die

4 years, 11 months

9
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400 Hz

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

First, thank you to everyone who replied and gave me things to think about and learn from. On 5/5/21 9:26 AM, wrcooke at wrcooke.net wrote: > Hope this helps. Yes, indeed, very much. Thankfully, your description happened to mesh with the weird way that my brain processes things and your message just clicked confirming what I was learning but still processing what other people had written. Thank you Will. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

4 years, 11 months

1
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